Stampin! with Jaydee

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday.

I hope you all had a fabulous day.  Me?  Well, I got to do some housework, which, believe it or not, I actually enjoy... and I got to spend some time in my crafting room making cards and playing with Charlie on his climber :-)

As usual, I went looking for some inspiration in the form of challenges and saw this amazing sketch across at Freshly Made Sketches

Once I saw the sketch, I had this idea to use the Simon Says Stamp kit from August which has an ice cream theme.  It's an unusual set for me, but the great thing about it is that it forces me out of my comfort zone.

Firstly I chose the papers and then went immediately to the stamp set.   I stamped the cone and colored it with copic markers.  The next thing I did was create the "heart cherry" with Real Red ink and a red glimmer pen.  Once I had done that, I set my sights on the ice cream.  I stole the idea of using embossing paste scoops colored with markers from Jennifer McGuire

Getting the icecream just right took a little while and then I had to leave it to dry.  Once it was dry, I could assemble all of the elements of my card.

Here's my card:

I wanted the "sweet" in the sentiment to pop, so fussy cut it and then popped it with clear double sided foam tape.

For the ice cream scoops, I stamped the scoop from the set three times onto paper and them fluffed up my embossing paste over the stamped outline.  Once they were dry, I cut around the stamped outline - making sure that I went underneath the embossing paste so that you wouldn't see the outline of the stamped scoop image.   I love the way it carries the color and theme from the DSPs :-)  

One last thing I did, just before the embossing paste was dry, was add some distress glitter to the scoops.  It's subtle and you can't really see it in the photograph, but you can see it when you have the card in hand.  I think it looks yummy enough to eat :-)

Don't forget to pop along to Freshly Made and check out the fabulous cards.

On a personal note:

 I promised to share a couple of photographs of our prairie with you.  It really has come into it's own this year and the variety of flowers and grasses is much better than it was last year.

We have some fabulous grasses coming up this year.  We also have the purple coneflowers, black-eyed Susan's, Aster, Yarrow, Blazing Star, Bee Balm and all sorts of other flowers that are totally unknown to me as yet!  But I am loving the mixture of purple, pink, yellow, white and the fabulous seed heads from the grasses.

I still love the swathe of the prairie down the eastern side of the house

 At the start of next season we are working with a new set of landscapers who specialize in restoring prairies.  They are going to help us extend the prairie on the east side and enhance the plantings in the woodland.  They are also going to help us this year by teaching us how to weed the prairie that we have  so that we know which are the "good" plants and which ones to get rid of :-)  Hopefully, by next year, the prairie should be looking even better than it does this year.  We are both so pleased that we made the decision to go this route instead of the  green grass and a few non-native plants and pre-requisite three trees that are the norm in our development.   I'll be back later in the week to show you some photos of the progress at the front of the house, too.

Well I am off to feed the pussy cats, do a few finishing touches in my craft room and then I'm going to relax for the night.  I'll be back tomorrow with another card.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Stamping supplies:

• Card stock:  Simon Says Stamp
• Stamps: Ice Cream Dream (SSS)
• Inks:  Copic Markers.  Memento Black